Hurricane Irma doesn't cheat Lee County out of record bed tax collection

Katy Danca Galli is the first female Artist in Residence for Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau. Here's a small sample of her work done on behalf of the bureau during the third quarter of 2017. Galli, a former photo editor for Scuba Diving magazine, brought a new perspective to local tourism promotion with her split-image or over-under shots of waterfronts. PHOTOS by KATY DANCA GALLI, used with permission of Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau. Video by Laura Ruane of The News-Press Media Group
Photos by Katy Galli/Video by Laura Ruane

Scene from the annual Island Hopper Songwriter Fest in Lee County, Florida.(Photo: SPECIAL TO THE NEWS-PRESS/Brian Tietz)

That declaration made in promotions for the Island Hopper Songwriter Fest hit the airwaves days after Hurricane Irma hammered Southwest Florida on Sept. 10.

After consulting partners, Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau decided the annual music event designed to put heads in hotel beds during tourism’s slowest month – September – wouldn’t be scrubbed, Irma be darned.

That doggedness – and other promotional efforts – appear to have paid off.

Lee County's tourism promotion efforts run on revenues from the Tourist Development Tax or "bed tax," a 5 percent levy charged on short-term accommodations.

The county Tourist Development Council met Monday and learned that:

Lee eked out a nearly 0.2 percent increase in bed tax collections for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. That’s about $62,000 over the previous fiscal year.

File photo shows downed trees and debris at the Edison & Ford Winter Estates on the day after Hurricane Irma. The historic attraction sustained no damage to its structures. Its landscape is once again tidy, with the entire campus open for business.(Photo: Amanda Inscore/The News-Press)

Sure, it’s tiny. But it’s the fifth consecutive fiscal year with a bed tax increase.

And, September helped. The preliminary estimate for September shows bed tax collections topping $1.65 million, a 5.4 percent increase over September of 2016.

September is historically a slow month for business. This particular September posed hardships for the tourism and hospitality industry that accounts for 1 in 5 jobs here.

In this file photo, a crew rakes Hurricane Irma debris off a stretch of Fort Myers Beach near the Outrigger resort. With some exceptions, Beach hotels were ready for business as soon as power was restored.(Photo: Special to The News-Press)

All told, 4 in 5 lodgings properties reported being closed for some length of time due to Hurricane Irma, according to Davidson Peterson Associates, county tourism’s statistical consultancy.

Most of these properties were closed less than two weeks, however.

As they reopened, Irma refugees and emergency first responders snapped up the paid accommodations.

That filled rooms at inland hotels that normally would have stayed vacant.

Travel consultancy STR follows the performance of hotels, particularly those in brand-name chains. That segment in Lee County reported a 9.7 percent gain in occupancy year-over-year, in September.

Strong demand for accommodations blunted the temptation to further discount room rates to prop up occupancy, said Bob Domine, Davidson Peterson Associates president.

That in turn, helped the bed tax collection.

To be sure, not everything was awesome before the hurricane.

The visitor bureau had set a goal for a 2.5 percent increase in bed tax collections for fiscal 2017, and didn’t achieve even a half-percent uptick.

The first three months recorded lower visitation and lower preliminary bed tax collections.Things improved in 2017's second quarter.

The third quarter of the calendar year was mixed. For the July-through-September period, Davidson Peterson Associates reported year-over-year declines in Lee County visitation (down 8.5 percent), total visitor expenditures (minus 3.2 percent) and available room nights (minus 4.9 percent).

Two other key industry measures — average daily (room) rate and revenue per available room or RevPar -— each edged nearly 3 percent higher.

“Certainly, fiscal year 2017 – while a record year – did not perform the way we had seen the past few years,” said Tamara Pigott, visitor bureau executive director.